Saturday July 30th and Sunday 31st, Catskills artists will open their doors to the public, in a pre-arranged tour, so that you can take a peek behind the scenes in an artist’s studio. 20 artists are taking part in the tour, but four of us are without a studio. We’ll be showing in the Grange Hub in Halcotsville opposite the old Lake Wawaka Hose #1, a few steps downhill from the Holy Innocents’ Church. Artists are en route throughout the countryside between the villages of Arkville, Margaretville and Roxbury.

Interested visitors can plan their tour by going to the website and printing out the map. You can also visit the Facebook page here. Glossy, color pamphlets with all the details are also widely available locally. (See bottom of the post for artists’ work.)

The project is the brainchild of local Catskills artist Alix Travis, who was inspired to start the tour after having done similar tours herself in other communities. Studio tours are a glimpse behind the scenes to explore methods and process, swap notes and absorb the creative atmosphere. What’s special about art is that identical processes can result in wildly differing effects when they’re employed by different artists and that’s fun to watch for everyone. What’s a good process for one artist isn’t necessarily good for other artists, but it’s fun to push the envelope and experiment.

Saturday July 30th, The Oak Hill Preservation Society & Preserved Instincts presents the DOPE JAMS OAK HILL DAY Open Air Party from 4pm to 10pm. Buses will run from Brooklyn to the Catskills. 7892 Rt 81, Main St, Oak Hill, New York 12460: more details here.

Saturday July 30th an artists’ reception at Windham Fine Arts on 5380 Main Street
Windham, NY 12496. The show runs through September 7th.

Saturday July 30th: Manhattan in the Mountains continues with its faculty concert at 8pm. Manhattan in the Mountains on Route 23A, Hunter, NY 12442.

The LongYear Gallery has been showing the works of Linda Lariar, Catskills artist, since July 16th. Linda is part of the East Branch of the Delaware Plein Air Group. Her opening will be July 23rd, 3pm to 6pm at LongYear Gallery, First Floor Rear, 785 Main Street, Margaretville NY 12455
Gallery Hours: Sat 10am-5pm.

Spillian, the inn and retreat in Fleischmanns is having a major party on Saturday July 23rd from 4pm to 10pm: a Cajun inspired feast of music and food with entertainment from Dylan Doyle, who will be recording live for his CD, with the entire show broadcast live on local radio. Entry is $15 for adults and $7.50 for children, in advance. Full cajun dinner: $18.00. Vegetarian dinner: $15. Drinks (beer, wine, cocktails): $5. Soft drinks: $1.00.

The Painter’s Gallery in Fleischmanns presents the opening reception for Luminance by Beth Caspar, Joan Grubin, Heather Hutchison, and Laura Sue King on Saturday July 23rd. This show brings together four artists experimenting with the perception of color and the play of natural light. The result is work that appears to glow or to be luminous, created with a variety of media but without the use of artificial sources of light. Luminance is up until August 20th.

Manhattan in the Mountains the music school in Hunter, begins its Fifth Anniversary concerts in Hunter on SundayJuly 24th and continues until August 24th. Manhattan in the Mountains is a program of The Catskill Mountain Foundation and all events take place at the Doctorow Center in Hunter. Established in 2012 as a summer music festival for violin, viola, cello, and piano students ages 13 and up, MinM offers a minimum of two private lessons per week, daily chamber music rehearsals, two chamber coachings per week, and three to five hours of scheduled practice time every day.

Bebert’s Cafe is hosting live music in their cafe garden at the weekends to complement their incredible food and tea on Sunday July 24th.

For the first two years of my radio show, I ran a series called The Economy of Farming and interviewed local farmers and their advocates here in the Catskills. The subject has been dormant on this website for a while, but deserves some intensive focus because farmers of smallholdings are struggling. If you watch those videos circulating on social media depicting the deprivation of animals – and their hideous death – in industrialized meat production facilities, there’s something simple you can do about it. Buy locally raised meat that is ethically reared and humanely slaughtered.

The LongYear Gallery has been showing the works of Linda Lariar, Catskills artist, since July 16th. Linda is part of the East Branch of the Delaware Plein Air Group. Her opening reception will be July 23rd, 3pm to 6pm.

EM: I had a friend called Helen Levitt, who was a wonderful, well-known photographer. I went on summer vacation with her almost every year beginning in 1980. We went to other places, like Cape Cod or New Hampshire and other spots and then in 1994, she came to Catskills. I didn’t come that year or the year after because I was working on a project in Hawai’i. In 1996, I started coming to stay with her in the summer time. That’s how I got introduced to the Catskills.

In 2005, I bought a house across the road from where we were staying every summer. It was a house I had been watching every year and nobody was in it and I used to wonder about it. Anyway, so I started looking for real estate and I looked for two years. The second year, this house was for sale and, almost as a lark, I made a low offer and got the house.

Lazy Crazy Acres Farm is one of the most inspiring and eclectic places to paint. Signage of all kinds competes with farm equipment, animals, barns, outhouses, thick vegetation, stunning views and a babbling brook running through it. Plein Air painting is a practice that requires speed and focus because your light source is literally moving overhead. If you’re in it to capture shadows and light, time is of the essence.

On the weekend of July 30th and 31st, 16 upstate artists will throw open their doors to the public, so that you can take a peek behind the scenes at what goes on in an artist’s studio. 20 artists are taking part in the tour, but four of us are without a studio. We’ll be showing in the Grange Hub in Halcotsville opposite the old Lake Wawaka Hose #1, a few steps downhill from the Holy Innocents’ Church. Artists are en route throughout the countryside between the villages of Arkville, Margaretville and Roxbury.

The project is the brainchild of local Catskills artist Alix Travis, who was inspired to start the tour after having done similar tours herself in other communities. Studio tours are a glimpse behind the scenes to explore methods and process, swap notes and absorb the creative atmosphere. What’s special about art is that identical processes can result in wildly differing effects when they’re employed by different artists and that’s fun to watch for everyone. What’s a good process for one artist isn’t necessarily good for other artists, but it’s fun to push the envelope and experiment.

This year’s Reuben is a tasty, juicy and modestly-sized; this last phrase is meant in the best possible way. So much of what we order today is either a belly-deadening doorstop or enough for two people to share, which limits your options. But even if you only eat half this sandwich, it survives a night in the fridge, like so many don’t. The Phoenicia Diner was written up in the New York Times this month and if it gets any more popular, we’ll start needing a reservation.

The East Branch of the Delaware Plein Air Group have their opening reception on Saturday July 2nd at the Commons Building, 785 Main Street in Margaretville, New York. The exhibition will be up until July 31st.

Writers in the Mountains, The Roxbury General and “community friends” have arranged an installation called “Raining Poetry” in Roxbury, New York, tomorrow morning. It’s poetry written on the pavement. It’s invisible though, so you have to throw some water on it to reveal the beauty. Watering cans will be set up so you can wet the sidewalk and watch the poetry appear.

The Painters Gallery on Main Street in Fleischmanns is hosting an opening on Saturday July 2nd from 3.30pm – 6pm called Weather Reports at Sea, an installation with multiple projections by Tona Wilson.

Woodstock Farm Sanctuary’s 9th Annual July Jamboreetakes place on Sunday July 3rd from 11am – 4pm. Award-winning veggie food trucks and booths, live music, vegan-themed tattoos done on-site by the artists from Gristle Tattoo in Brooklyn, kids’ activities including face-painting, a bouncy castle, water slide, and more! Bestselling author Terry Hope Romero will also be presenting around her new cookbook, “Protein Ninja”. Spend the day with family and friends and meet over 300 friendly rescued cows, pigs, goats, turkeys and more while benefiting our rescue, shelter and outreach work for farmed animals.

There will be a free sanctuary shuttle for this event departing hourly from the New Paltz Trailways bus station.